At the Museum of Modern Art in New York last night, you could betray the Ruler of the Starry Heavens in the sculpture garden, compete in the Olympics using an iPad on the 2nd floor, or leap from rooftop to rooftop with the tap of a button.

Or you could play hip, new versions of Pong and Pac-Man, too.

The special evening, called “Arcade,” was part of MoMA’s PopRally series of collaborations and events, and was hosted by Kill Screen – a videogame arts and culture company. Kill Screen borrows its name from the stage in a videogame when a technical error prevents a player from progressing.

But last night, there were no impediments to gaming. Twelve games were stationed throughout three floors, and the arcade was created as an extension of the current “Talk to Me” design exhibition. There were physical (non-electronic) games, remote-control videogames, mobile iPad games, and even one game where the aim was simply to toss a piece of paper into a trash can.

The crowd, mostly in their twenties and thirties, wandered around, collecting and then atomizing. Clusters formed around various gaming stations, and player performances were met with hoots and cheers. The “QWOP” game, in which the objective was to control the runners thighs and calves to cross a finish line, was particularly popular. At the “B.U.T.T.O.N.” game, in which players had to follow instructions on a screen and bang on large buttons on the floor, bystanders lined up for their own turn. In the sculpture garden, globular white balloons that represented clouds hovered over a lifesize board game. On the ground floor, DJ Jakub Marek Alexander, aka “Heathered Pearls,” provided the music – electronic, of course.

Jamin Warren, founder of Kill Screen, worked with partners Tom Gregorio and Tavit Geudelekian, as well as PopRally, to create the arcade. Their focus in selecting the games was contemporary – they picked games that have come out in the last six years that they thought represented the direction games were moving toward. “We chose them for game-mechanics reasons if the game did something very interesting; or visual reasons if they looked new and unique; or they represented some other kind of niche or unexplored area in games,” he said.

“There are few things that you can find that crisscross different ages, genders, interests,” Warren added. “But one thing everybody does is, they play. They play games. They don’t always play all the same games, but they certainly do play.”

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.